Trauma Center: Second Opinion: A Challenging Medical Adventure
Link11234
90% score
When I got Trauma Center, I wasn't expecting it to take hold of me so quickly. When I first heard about the game, I was expecting a quirky little title with doctor fun. But this game is so much more. For starters, the graphics are absoultely amazing. Everything from the slightly bleeding lacerations to the pulsating hearts you operate on breathes with life, and a unique anime style for the characters is the icing on the cake. The soundtrack is a fair addition, featuring a few songs that will get stuck in your head but nothing that is ground-breaking. Also, the constant beeps that you hear upon a successful interaction can get JUST a little repetitive. Where Trauma Center truly shines, though, is in the control and gameplay factors. Every motion you make is followed by a small, easily recognizable dot onscreen. The Nunchuck also falls seamlessly into gameplay as a tool selector. The wiimote and nunchuck duo also serves some interesting functions throughout the course of the game, such as a defibrilator which is activated by pushing both of the controllers in and then pressing a single button. The game is challenging at first, but difficulty modes more than make up for some of the harder (or easier) missions. Also, the desire to get a perfect rating on all of the operations AND extra operations not featured in the original DS version add hours of replay value. Trauma Center is an amazing overlooked game for the Wii, and once you've accomplished Twilight Princess, it adds more zest to the amazing console. A little more AI competence for some of the harder missions and a better soundtrack would lead this game to total perfection. But for its genre and style, the game is simply excellent. Now, back to some heart surgery.
